


Aleph

by Lasgalendil



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Natasha Romanov, Alpha Peggy Carter, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Religion Changes, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Awesome Sarah Rogers, Awesome Wanda Maximoff, BAMF Natasha Romanov, BAMF Peggy Carter, BAMF Sarah Rogers, BAMF Wanda Maximoff, Beta Sam Wilson, Bisexual Peggy Carter, Body Horror, Catholic Steve Rogers, Civil Rights Movement, Eurovision, F/F, F/M, Female Genital Mutilation, Feminist!Steve Rogers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, M/M, Multi, Mutant Wanda Maximoff, Natasha Feels, Nurse Sarah Rogers, Omega Bucky Barnes, Omega Verse, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Podfic Welcome, Polyamory, Pre-Wanda Maximoff/Vision, Religion, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sarah Rogers - Freeform, Sarah Rogers Not So Secret Abortionist, Sarah Rogers Suffragette, Sexual Equality, Socialist!Steve Rogers, Steggy - Freeform, Steve Rogers-centric, Stucky - Freeform, Vision is adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:04:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7404670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven Grant Rogers is not your "All-American, All-Alpha" Superhero. </p><p>...no. No he's much, <em>much</em> better than that. </p><p>Featuring awesome social worker Sam Wilson, social justice warrior Steve, sassy, hurting, but healing Natasha, and gamer, death metal enthusiast, and all around pain-in-the-ass Omega Bucky Barnes...not to mention teen-age angsting Wanda Maximoff. It's them against the world, and honey, the world don't stand a damn chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the 21st century, and he's here, he's queer, he's drinking beer.
> 
> ...somehow Sam Wilson doesn't think the USO would approve of Cap's new theme song.

For being the guy’s running buddy and perhaps-best-friend-this-side-of-the-20th-century, It was easy to forget Steve Rogers was The Man Out of Time. One moment the dude’d be adding yet another tv series to his ever-growing Netflix queue, mentioning he’d been “meaning to get around to that”, and the next, dude was gawping, tripping over his own feet and face-planting into a damned light post all ‘cause he’s caught two queers kissing on a street corner.

Well. Make that hard to remember. It was _hard to remember_ life had been different, back in the day. That alphas roamed the streets unchecked, that forcible heat-knotting wasn’t considered rape, that an alpha in rut wasn’t responsible for their actions, that an omega was held accountable (still blamed, to this day, if not on heat-suppressants) for their own biology, while alphas were “at the mercy of nature”. That omegas only got the vote around the time Steve Rogers had been born. That Steve went under the ice more that twenty years before Stonewall, before Selma, before the Alabama Bus Boycott, before the massive Omega Lib movement of the 60's and 70's that made hormonal heat-blockers and abortion (supposedly) accessible to all. Anti-miscegenation was still the standard in his time, that whites and blacks—any people of color—were forbidden to interbreed. That two men, two women, two alphas, two omegas, even two betas couldn’t be seen together in public, that queerness—of whatever gender—was both a death sentence and social suicide.

No. They hadn’t had hormonal heat-suppressants in the 1920’s. Castration, sure, but that was reserved solely for criminals, the mentally ill, for blacks, for Irish, for alphas “too inferior” to spread their seed for fear of contaminated stock, for omegas deemed “too sickly to bear”.

“People forget because they want to,” Cap had sighed when Sam’d had the shit-for-brains idea of taking him to the Holocaust Museum. “That Hitler’s eugenics and eugendering began here at home.”

…and any other methods? Yeah. Sam’d looked it up. Comstock laws had made it a crime.

“Ma was a suffragette,” Cap had shrugged when the sensitive issue of suppression, contraception, and abortion turned up. For all SHIELD's briefing, they'd done a shit job actually preparing Steve Rogers for the 21st Century. “She marched for omega rights, went to jail for omega rights, and she’d be damned if she didn’t help every alpha lookin’ for scent-blockers or omega lookin’ for heat-masking on our street. Tampons soaked in alcohol, you know. Dry up the nose, kill the nerve endings, stop a rut. Tampons soaked in vinegar up the the uh, well. You know,” Steve flushed. “The vagina or anus. Dry up secretions and scent glands. And she’d, well. It was an Irish and Italian street. Omegas always pregnant, more in their brood than they could look after, and ma, she’d help out. If someone wanted. A lot of nurses would, back in those days. Termination might be illegal, might be a sin, but it was just practical, you know? And ma, she’d never ask. Never make ‘em say. Knew a few Sisters who’d do it, too, the church mid-wives an’ all, but you’d have to swear up an’ down it wasn’t your alpha an’ even then they’d make you go to confessional after. But ma? Ma knew how to do it, do it proper. Could smell it on ‘em. How far along. If a tea would work or if it’d have to be some stronger herbs, have to be a scraping. Don’t know how many ‘megas she saved, stopped ‘em from throwin’ themselves down the stairs when no one else’d help ‘em.”

“And here I thought your ma was Catholic,” Sam said, once he’d popped his dislocated jaw back in place. Seriously, though. That feeling you got when you smile or yawn too wide, too much? Yeah. His whole face was on fucking fire.

  
“She was.”

  
“Okay, right. So here I thought _you_ were Catholic,” Sam frowned.

  
“I am,” Steve said. "But my best gal's a _quee_ r, Sam. What makes you think abortion or suppression would be any different?" Peggy Carter, doubly damned for her not-so-secret relationship with Angela Martinelli and her interracial marriage to Gabe Jones. Margaret Elizabeth "Big Brass Ones" Carter was a white alpha female married to a black alpha male with their mixed race children and her Italian Omega female lover living in unashamed polyamorous harmony back in the 1960's. Needless to say, it'd been a hard thing for the American and British people to stomach. But unlike Sally Ride, Carter hadn't held back a thing, let her legacy be crawling with controversy and didn't give a damn. (It was, after all, she'd said glibly in a 1991 interview when the Iron Curtain had fallen, "quite a great thing for an actress' career to sustain some sort of scandal. As I was the bread-winner I was only happy to provide!")

There was no arguing with that. But still. It cut across everything Sam'd been told (by USO, SSR, US and SHIELD propaganda, no doubt) about Cap's sainted childhood. Dude may have well've been Jesus for all the government was concerned, never sinned, born to a virgin, taught at the temple as a twelve year-old or something.“‘Sarah Rogers: Catholic Saint and Secret Abortionist’,” Sam tried it out. “I thought the two were mutually exclusive?”

  
“‘I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth, but your desire shall be for your alpha, and they shall rule over you.” Cap quipped, easy-as-you-please.

  
Papa was a preacher, or had been, until some damned White Alpha Rights Activist shot him. Sam was damned well sure something had short-circuited in his brain. “Dude…you…did you just quote the Bible?”

  
Steve shrugged.

  
“No, did Steve Rogers—did _Captain fucking America_ —just quote the Bible to justify _abortion_ —?” Sam said faintly. “Think I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming. Hell, even the Pope—you know, this one, our one not like, your one…” Sam trailed off his Beta Baptist babbling. “Shit.”

  
“We were Irish,” Steve argued. “We were always free thinkers. Weren’t exactly known for doin’ as we’re told. And it wasn’t just ma. Couldn’t keep a job as a newsie, got sick too much, even with Buck coverin’ my shifts…so on good days Ma’d have me be lookout, even a runner. Delivered more satchels of Queen Ann’s Lace an’ tansy tea an in my time than OmegasontheOcean.”

  
“Okay. Okay, wow. Just…wow, man. Mind officially blown. Your ma was a secret abortionist and you’re okay with that.”

  
Steve sighed. “Can’t say I’m okay with that, Sam, not really. I’d rather a world where no omega was forced to carry a child or endure a heat against their will, where no pregnancy ever occurred when unwanted, where there was no sexual assault, rather have a societal structure where no family of any means had to make that choice because all children were valued and taken care of. But idealism without action is dangerously willful naivety, Sam,” And he sounded tired, more tired that Sam had ever heard. “Sure, ma was an abortionist. But she also went to prison for omega rights and protest. An’ that’s how I make my peace with that,” Cap sighed. “She did what she could. She did _everything_ that she could.”

And somewhere, somehow in a parallel universe and/or time travel, six year-old Samuel Thomas Wilson kicked the shins and shit out of whatever school yard bully told him he could never be a Howling Commando ‘cause Captain America didn't have time for the son some poor, black, Baptist omega rights activist. _You heard it here first, folks_ , Sam grinned at the thought. _Always meet your heroes._

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Sam finally said, and handed the dude an ice cold beer. “Steve Rogers, all-around American hero and socialist.”

  
“Yep,” Cap flipped the top effortlessly, saluting him. “That’s me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OmegasontheOcean is a fictitious, in-universe representation of real-life  
> Women On Waves. Learn more about these badass women delivering safe and effective healthcare globally via drones, mail, and the safe harbor of international waters:
> 
> http://vesselthefilm.com/


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's not a monster. She never was.

When a smart, sassy, sexy lady like the Black friggin’ Widow (who was blindingly, _blindingly_ white, for all her namesake) invited you out to dinner, you went. One, because Natalia Romanova/Natasha Romanoff/Natalie Rushman/THE BLACK FRIGGIN’ WIDOW invited you to dinner and the lady was a fine slice of vanilla cake on two _especially_ _fine_ vanilla cakepops and your mama didn’t raise no fool. And two, if you didn’t accept what was an obvious declaration of "we need to talk about Steve Rogers", then you were a) no friend of said Steve Rogers and b) going to have said talk anyways under much less comfortable circumstances at her (in)discretion. So Samuel Thomas “Might Be A Bird But Nobody’s Wingman” Wilson, Beta or not, did what any man with brains would when a fine, _fine_ female Omega assassin with vice-like thighs that could crush a man's skull between them invited a man to dinner.

…He called up his mama and told her he loved her.

Also texted a picture of himself in his last known outfit at his last known location to Sarah because a) Darlene “Too Old For This Shit” Wilson didn’t need to worry about her middle, perpetually-single son anymore than she already did and b) Gideon “Who Gives A Shit” Wilson wouldn’t couldn’t care less if he ended up cold and naked without his face or teeth or fingerprints at the bottom of the Potomac. No. She might be a thirty-seven year-old alpha with kids of her own now, but Sarah “Still A Wilson Don’t Think You Can Get Rid Of Me That Easy You Little Shit” Carson was still his Big Sis and if anyone could track the Widow down and give her hell to pay, it’d be the once sixteen year-old girl with box braids on fleek, a pedicure to die for, cute summer dress and white wedge flip flops with a right hook that could fell an ox at fifty feet, let alone any honky (yeah, sorry, pops) dumb or just plain damn drunk enough to catcall her.

Sarah “Big Sis” Wilson did NOT fuck around.

But if The Black Widow was intent on living up to her name and murdering him, she sure did a good job hiding it. _Yeah, Sam, she's a professional_ spy, Sam reminded himself, _none of this is for you_. But hot damn, did homegirl look _good_. Certainly went all out for it. Sexy little black number, sultry smile and a kiss on the cheek. Let him order her wine and entree with demure deference of her exposed neck that sent every Alpha in the room(and his)'s heart racing.

“So,” Sam finally said after the somelier had left. “Why here?”

  
She took a bite of baguette slyly, practically eye-fucking him over her fingers. Then, “Why do you think?”

  
_Damn,_ Sam thought. _How very maiuetic._ Girl was _good_.

  
“Well, I’d say it’s ‘cause you like me, but we both know that’s not it, however wounded my pride may be,” Sam laughed nervously. “You, uh, you like the food?”

  
“It’s a public venue,” she smiled “In a well-lit, affluent, urban area. Plenty of by-standers. Security cameras.”

  
“What, you wanted that I feel _safe_ —?” Sam asked incredulously.

“No,” the Widow said with a predatory smile that did not match her flirtatious omega posturing. “I wanted you to know that despite all appearances and assurances of safety if I thought even for a moment your intentions towards Steve were in any ways meant to harm him—“ here she paused to take a very delicate, very calculated sip of wine that holy hell looked a lot like blood that Sam could NOT unsee, thank you very much, “ I’d kill you anyways.”

 _Uhh…_ Sam’s brain supplied.

She took another sip of wine. Stared at him like a cat closing in for the kill.

“…Uh…” Sam's mouth said.

The waiter appeared, summoned by her sheer force of will. “More wine?”

And Natalie “Whoever The Hell She Was Pretending To Be Right Now” Rushman gave him her girliest grin and most sugary “Yes, please. But only if that’s okay, honey.”

 _Oh. Sure. Suuure, sugartits. Whatever you wan_ t, Sam most certainly did NOT say very sarcastically out loud because his mama hadn’t raised no fool and would surely raise him from his early grave just to lecture him if she’d told him once told him a thousand times to remember Emmett Till and his big fat black mouth was bound to get him in trouble someday…and Sam Wilson (thanks to several prescriptions, good social support and considerable therapy) might be an ex-Air Force Pararescueman and The Motherfucking Falcon but he wasn’t _suicidal._

She'd brought him here to make him feel safe then take it all away from him as easy as ordering a glass of wine. No, make that a refill of a glass of wine. No, no make that deferring the choice of a refill of his choice of wine to him _while simultaneously threatening his life._ “So,” Sam said, voice and hands shaking so bad he couldn’t cut let alone chew his own steak. “So, um, is this like, my last meal or something?”

That grin turned bemused, crooked, almost endearing. “You’re a Beta, aren’t you?”

 _Uh…_ Sam’s brain supplied, again unhelpfully. _Was this, had she, did that—had she actually been hitting on him, then—?_ And Sam’s brain, unhelpfully as ever, just gave up and resigned. Packed a bag and moved to San Juan or something.

She took pity and reiterated. “You're not an Omega.”

“Huh? Oh, oh yeah! I’m a, I’m not like you. You know. You do know, right? I’m uh, I’m not after your mam or your alpha or anything just a little uh, companionship? I mean, Steve’s like Captain America and all and sure I’d kill for an autograph and dude is aesthetically fine as hell but like, it’s all cuddles and queerplatonic and betaromantic and it's not like that so you don’t have to worry _and oh God please don’t kill me,_ ” Sam rushed a) in relief, b) reassurance and c) just to reiterate once again and save his dumb black ass.

But the Black Widow, if anything, seemed saddened. “He’s not, you know.”

Sam was now incredibly frightened and incredibly terrified and _incredibly fucked_ and incredibly fucking confused because _what_ —?

“Not mine,” she said again. And it wasn’t wistful, wasn’t regretful, not hopeful, not like, not like she—

“Really?” Sam blurted before he could stop himself. “Dude is _stacked as hell_. You’re _an omega_. You can’t tell me you don’t want a piece of that!”

“Steve’s my friend,” she said, not meeting Sam’s eyes for the first time tonight.

“Okay, then,” Sam said, uncertain. “If you’re not planning on killing me ‘cause you don’t think I’m gonna steal your man or rat Steve out to the paparazzi…why are we here again?”

“You’re Steve’s friend.”

Sam thought long and hard about how this could possibly not be and/or be a trick question before giving up and realizing this was the Black Friggin’ Widow and the answer to both her question and his was always: “Yes?”

But she didn’t relax. Her shoulders went, if anything, stiffer. And Sam was struck with the sudden thought that this was her— _really, actually Her_ —whoever she really was. That she’d asked him to dinner and dropped all pretense and barred herself to someone free of legends and cover for the first time in…in possibly ever. And it was a little unnerving, to say the least. _And oooh, boy._ Samuel Thomas Wilson was an LCSW and _definitely_ not qualified for this shit.

“So I’m here because I’m Steve’s friend,” he began slowly. “And you’re wondering…” _if I could be yours, too? If I’ll help you keep an eye on him? That he’s maybe suicidal and you need an extra eye on things—?_ But the Woman Behind The Black Widow looked as nervous as a newborn gazelle in a pit of lions and Sam sure as hell wasn’t going to anything to fuck this up or scare her away.

“Steve,” she finally said, “Steve said. You compared him. Once. To a Somali war orphan.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Yeah, I did.” Dude had been _offended,_ if you can believe it. Said “there’s a lot of people out there who have it worse than I do” and “It’s still my country even if it’s the future” and “I’ve got Peggy, Sam” with his All-American Dad-face of Disapproval that had Sam wanting to sing the national anthem while saluting from a Ford on the summit of Mount Rushmore while simultaneously stuffing his face with apple pie.

“And I wondered. I thought. I figured,” she struggled. Left it. “That world. You know it.”

“Yeah,” Sam answered kindly. He’d done refugee work. An Internship in Lewiston, Maine. Worked with Somali, Syrian, every sort of refugees he could. _Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breathe free._ King'd had it right, violence and hate only created more violence and hate. You wanted world peace, you wanted soldiers home from Iraq, Afghanistan, a world where Muslims and Christians and Hindus and who-knows-what-else could co-exist? You _leaned the fuck in_ , that's what you did. “Yeah, I do.”

“You would know. People.”

And suddenly Sam had a really, really bad idea about where this was going. And he wanted to be sick. “You’re not, are you?” he asked. And gender stereotypes and gender trinaries be damned, it should have been obvious. Obvious to anyone with half a brain. What’s the first thing you do to a dog who won’t behave? You neuter it. Take away its will. And the Black Widow had been less a Soviet Asset than a _Soviet Slave_ , whatever her intelligence or abilities. Sam knew about military sexual assault and pleasure-girls and honey-traps and Sparrow School and forced prostitution and sex slaves. A female operative was useful in more ways than a male, and an attractive omega even more so.

…But she wasn’t. Hadn't been. An omega. Not really. Not by birth. Not by—

Not by _choice_.

Somali War Orphan. Of all the dumb things Sam WIlson had ever said, that’s the phrase she’d picked up on. And yeah, yeah Sam knew an unfortunate lot about female circumcision. Omegas robbed of their labia, clitoris, left with painful, scarred up vaginas. Alphas either killed or forcibly castrated, their bodies reshaped to society’s expectations of the female form and ideal. They’d still have scent receptors, yes, but without hormonal stimulation at puberty they’d regress. And their ovipositors, their ovaries, their ability and most importantly their _desire_ to ever impregnate an omega would be gone.

Fuckers, Sam thought, enraged. Those absolute sadistic fuckers. _Of course_ an alpha child would have a higher chance of surviving their training. _Of course_ a submissive, seemingly-omega woman would be more useful. So they _made her one_. Of course they fucking did. Of fucking course.

“Yeah,” Sam continued gently, despite the pounding in his ears and tightness of his knuckles. Did his absolute best not to scare her, startle her. Humbled, honored, horrified, really, that she’d chosen him to confide in. “I know people. I could, um, I could make a few calls. If you want.”

“Steve,” she choked, instead of an answer. “He’s, he’s an alpha.”

…and Sam was a Beta. Scentless. Seemingly sexless. He had a bad feeling about this one, too. “And he reminds you,” Sam began. “His scent reminds you of them. What happened to you.”

“No,” she finally sighed, a wet, weepy smile on her face. “He reminds me of what I could have been. Can still be. All my life I’ve been ashamed of being an alpha. Afraid, even. I was _glad_ they took it away from me. But Steve—“ and here she choked out a sob, and Sam, good bro, confirmed bachelor, Beta, and perpetual shoulder to cry on tentatively reached out his hand to touch hers while telegraphing his every move.

“Yeah,” Sam said, giving that hand a gentle squeeze before retreating and getting the hell out of Dodge because he didn’t want to spook her but also was a sentimental pile of emotions and empathy and was all around in general waaay too caring for his own immediate physical good. “Yeah. Steve,” he agreed with a hoarse grunt. “I know.”

Because Steven Grant Rogers was the walking embodiment of everything that was kind and caring, both Protector and Nurturer, absolutely everything that contradicted what society said about alphas and their nature. A constant reminder that anyone and everyone could make that choice, lame-ass excuses about heats and hormones and ruts be damned. That being sexual didn’t make you a sexual predator. That rape was always and would always be a _choice._

“You know him. You trust him. Dude has nothing but respect for you,” Sam wondered. “Why didn’t you talk to him?”

She shook her head pityingly. “You’re the social worker,” she drawled, that mask back on, those walls back up, _but oh, honey, you don’t have to hide. Not anymore. Not from me._ “You of all people know better than to shit where you eat.”

…and okay. Okay. Sam Wilson could respect a woman who knew about mental health and social support and friendships but still respected the importance of boundaries. And so Sam Wilson, concerned social worker and all around good guy, went out of his way not to pressure the lady about her issues because it was none of his damned business and he was just one link in a long, long chain of healing and recovery but still, he had to admit he was more than a little curious and concerned for her. But Sam Wilson was a professional, with a degree and a license and a job at the VA with combat vets and a best friend who was a literal legitimate War Hero and American Icon to prove it and this not-his-patient was both a frightened baby gazelle and a vicious, eviscerating predator so Sam Wilson knew better than to ask.

 _And besides,_ Sam reasoned, _with a friend like Steve Rogers, how alone could homegirl ever actually be?_

And yeah. So no one ever in the history of ever—especially a Beta—had appreciated an unsolicited dick pic, but when a snap of the completed reconstruction came through from an anonymous account and disappeared a few seconds later, even Sam couldn’t help but grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So AoU Nat thinks she's a monster not because she's killed people and destroyed lives but because _she can't have kids?_
> 
> ...Sure, Joss. Remind us all again how *feminist* you are.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s hot, he’s horny, and he won’t stand for your gender trinary. Bucky Barnes is in the house, folks!
> 
> …he’s also in heat, much to Sam’s chagrin.

So it was like this. When Cap lets on his “best guy’s not doin’ so well, would you mind checkin’ up on him, Sam” and lapses into this hilarious New Yawk/Irishman dialect on accident, you know shit’s serious. So yeah. Yeah Samuel Thomas “Cap’s Best Friend” Wilson wouldn’t mind at all, not even if it was real inconvenient and everything or if said best guy hadn’t really ever apologized for throwing him out of the goddamned sky then dropping a helicarrier on his black ass. No sir, Mr. Captain America, sir.  
  
“Sure, Steve,” Sam had shrugged.  
  
…in retrospect, Sam should’ve seen it coming. “Sure, Steve” turned into “I’ve had enough of your Alpha/Omega bullshit, Rogers! You could’ve asked Nat, you know!” preeetty damn quick.  
  
But Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, the infamous Star Spangled Man With a Plan just blushed a furious shade of pink and went honest-to-God green with jealousy. “She’s an alpha,” he’d blurted, whingeing with mortification. “And they have _history_ —!”  
  
…Well. Sam'd be damned.

* * *

 

So anyways. Samuel Thomas “Good Friend” Wilson went by their cozy little D.C. home to check up on Bucky “recently-sentenced-to-time-served” Barnes because the guy’d been around Steve Rogers for far too long and accepted responsibility for his brainwashed actions and outright refused a not-guilty plea and damn, the Notorious RBG had come down swift and just and just plain damn awesome in her ruling about enhanced individuals and civil responsibilities. So now the U.S. government and Sam’s tax dollars were fighting extradition orders from at least five former Soviet Bloc countries not to mention the Middle East and Russia herself and Republican Right Wingers demanding a retrial and Cap had just smiled for the CNN cameras and went all Arwen on their ass with a calm, collected “do you really think you could take him from me?” and that was that. When you accidentally created the world’s original and only “All-American, All Alpha” superhero, you’d damn well best listen to what the man had to say.  
  
…and the collective governments of the world couldn’t just shit their damn pants and turn tail and run, no. They had to save some face. So they shit their pants, turned tail and ran and cried whee, whee, whee all the way home then started “dialogue” about “sanctions” and “UN involvement” and “extradition” and shit, while Larry Williams, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Samantha Bee and even Colbert made fun of them on a daily, nightly, or last weekly basis. And as much as Sam loved him some Larry or Trevor and Chesca Ramsey and Jessica Williams, he had to admit Colbert’s “Winter Smolder” act was by far his all-time favorite.  
  
So Sam knocked gingerly on the front door, rang the doorbell once or twice or five hundred times, before sighing and taking the spare key from _under the goddamn mat really, Rogers?_ and letting himself in. His ears, it needed to be said, were immediately assaulted with what he could only guess was possibly Russian or Sokovian death metal and/or Yiddish rap, and/or an ungodly combination thereof. Living for nearly a century as a Jewish-Irish American-Russian sniper turned hitman turned house-husband did weird things to a guy’s taste in music.

“Uh, Barnes—?” Sam called. Like he had any chance of being heard over _Vershtickt and the Vohlk_ or whoever the hell they were. Seriously. This was worse than Sokovia’s _несрећom невеста_ entry at last year’s Eurovision, which was saying something, and to which Sam fated himself to repeating every May ad infinitum so long as Wanda Mutant-Jew-Romani-Maximoff had anything to say about it. Sam was all for diversity, dude. But seriously—? These two.  
  
“Barnes—?” Sam called again. Damn, this was exactly the sort of teenage bullshit he’d pulled when he’d been a teenager, too. Cryogenically frozen and/or tortured, Barnes did NOT have that excuse.  
  
“Living room,” he made out Barnes’ unenthusiastic grunt over the din.  
  
“Hey, man. Steve wanted…” and Sam’s brain just stopped, and his mouth continued flapping, uselessly.  
  
Barnes, in all his shirtless, scarified glory, was nestled atop the largest heap of mess Sam had ever witnessed outside of Hoarders. Which he watched with his mama. And Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. And he did NOT get tears in his eyes, not matter what his big sis said. (Okay. Maybe a little. Or a lot. Sam’d been in refugee camps and done resettlement work, for crying out loud. Give the man a break.)  
  
“What. The Shit.” Sam addressed the literal elephant-sized crap-heap in the room.  
  
Barnes scowled. “Don’t like, don’t stay. I ain’t botherin’ anyone.”  
  
“Wait,” Sam gaped, that embarrassing seventh grade health class catching up with him. “Are you… _nesting_ —?”  
  
“Don’t be an idiot,” Barnes snapped from atop his mountain of cozy sweaters and Steve’s laundry and what looked like every couch cushion and the mattress and pillows and comforter from their bed all piled unceremoniously onto the living room floor in front of the tv. Dude was playing Call of Duty from his cuddly blanket fort, and rather viciously.  “I’d have to be _pregnant,_ wouldn’t I?”  
  
Uh, Sam’s brain said unhelpfully. It wasn’t like Omega males couldn’t get pregnant, just that it was highly fucking dangerous as they didn’t have the wombs to support a fetus, let alone expel during the birth. Think ectopic pregnancy. Bleeding. Death. Usually in the first or second trimester. It still happened, sure. You’d read about it, some fluke “I didn’t know I was pregnant” or “I had a c-section at 28 weeks” sort of shit, but mostly it was a thing of the past…or soap-operas, the kind of really cheese-y daytime television his dear old mama would denounce to the grave but secretly loved and thought Sam didn’t know about it and because he was a good son he’d let her keep thinking it. Truth was, most male Omegas would simply pass a pregnancy before it even had the chance to implant, but then again these days most male Omegas would be on suppressants, even take supplements to get that Alpha physique and scent. In today’s world of hormones, anyone could be anything they wanted…and who would want to be a _male Omega—?_  
  
“Well?”  
  
“Guh…” Sam’s mouth said, also unhelpfully.  
  
Barnes paused the game in the middle of his kill-streak, the disemboweled guts of his enemies spread across the screen. Gave him the patented Winter Smolder Look™, you know, that one that launched a thousand ships…er, internent campaigns and a shit-ton of legislation and PR nightmares and letters to the editor and possibly even the return of the Cold War and their impending, inevitable mutually assured destruction at the hands of democratically-elected his ass Russian dictator Vladmir Putin. “What? You got somethin’ to say there, sport?”  
  
“Uh…I uh…what I meant—mean to—and that’s not…possible?” Sam grimaced. He was an articulate, intelligent man, damnit! With a degree and everything! How did only measly, pant-shittingly terrifying Omega assassin turn him into a bundle of nerves and sweat and mouth-brain disconnect every. Single. Goddamned. Time.  
  
Barnes only glared up from what Sam didn’t want to guess and/or think about was smelling the armpits of Steve’s t-shirt and/or crotch of Steve’s whitey-tighties. “I’m _denning_.”  
  
“Denning?” Sam asked, and his voice didn’t squeak. Not even a little bit.  
  
Barnes rolled his eyes. Restarted his game. And music. That godawful music. “I’m in _heat,_ you mook, not pregnant.”  
  
“Well, that’s a reli—wait? You’re in heat? Right now? What do I—how do I—I can call Steve—do I need to call Steve? Oh shit do I need to leave?” Sam yelped. “Is he gonna accidentally kill me if he smells me here—you’d better not be jerking off under there!”  
  
Barnes paused his game again. Again inopportune. This time it was mid-decapitation. At least there was peace and quiet? Sam’d go for quiet. “Ain’t like that. Fuck, did you really not know?”  
  
“I’m a Beta,” Sam sniffed, offended. Also to make his point.  
  
But Barnes just grinned, that son of a bitch. “What, and you ain’t got a nose—?”  
  
“We’ve got less scent receptor density and you—“ _don’t know it_ , Sam’s brain finished for him, because he was frozen in cryo and HYDRA’s asset for the past seventy years or so. “…’re the first heat that’s been strong enough I can actually smell,” he lied instead.  
  
Barnes snorted his semi-approval. “That’s probably ‘cause I’m not some idiot who injects with shit.”  
  
“Lots of people use suppressants,” Sam frowned. He might be a Baptist, but he was pro-autonomy, that's for sure. And if that made him pro-choice, then his poor fundamentalist mama would just have to pray for him, that’s all. Samuel Thomas “Good Ally” Wilson wasn’t changing his mind. Not even for his mama.  
  
Barnes snorted again. This time decidedly more derogatory. Went back to mashing buttons and shooting bad guys. “Yeah, well, lots of people are idiots.”  
  
“So, what, you gonna stay cocooned in there for like, a week?” Sam pressed. “How does this work, man? Does Steve even know—?”  
  
Barnes scowled. Shot a man through the genitals and oookay, Sam felt his balls shrivel. “Oh, he knows alright,” another dick bit the dust. And another. And another. “Went to the store and everything, got myself what I needed, tampons and rubbing alcohol and vinegar and vaseline and shit and that absolute aleph asshole goes and steals all my heat supplies. He had to’ve smelt it coming. For a week at least. He shows himself in here I’m gonna bite his fuckin’ face off then fuck him through the floor.”  
  
One? Heat sounded horrible and disgusting. Two? Two Sam really, really didn’t want to be here when Steve got home.  
  
“He’s close,” Barnes grunted, shooting another enemy soldier’s junk off.  
  
Sam couldn’t even hear the sound of Steve’s hog. Not at this distance. Not with the uh, lovely current ethnic background acoustics. You could take the whiteboy out of the 1940’s, but you couldn’t take the 1940’s out of the whiteboy, that’s for sure. But like everything with these two, the answer was always super-soldier serum or “and that’s why bananas taste so fuckin’ weird”, Sam supposed.  
  
“Yeah? And how could you know? You got security cameras up around all of DC?”  
  
“First, duh,” Barnes said scathingly, the Look™ obviously now implying what sort of super-serum soldier assassin do you take me for—? “Two, I can smell him, you putz,” well, that just seemed like a gross violation of civil liberties, not to mention abuse of the Yiddish language. But Sam supposed after SHIELD’s whole helicarriers of Big Brother and Death and having HYDRA’s same agenda of mass destruction fiasco, really, the world was probably still in better hands. “That and my dick’s so hard it hurts and I’m so wet I may as well’ve pissed my pants.”  
  
Oh. And, yeah. Wow. Okay, then. Definitely a heat, then. It was sickly and sweet and so, so much sex and so strong it was nauseating and Sam might just have to hurl.  At least Barnes had paused the game. And Sam could dimly make out the sound of Steve killing the Harley’s engine over the caucaphony of Russian/Sokovian/Yiddish rap death metal hybrid and distant, probably now-permanent tinnitus. Thanks, Barnes.  
  
“Buck—?” Steve called from the garage. “Hey, Buck?”  
  
And Bucky Barnres, super-soldier assassin and general pain in Sam’s ass made a whimpering, pleading little sound like a kitten or a baby goat or something and Steve swept into the room all Alpha and Imposing and flashed Sam a look that promised DEATHPAINMURDER—  
  
“Oh,” Steve said, and that terrible scent of alpha _angerragejealousyprotection_ wafted away. “Hey, Sam.” Dude even did a cute little embarrassed wave and everything.  
  
Sam had, well. Sam was suddenly grateful for all the Alpha and Omega smells. Given he had maybe pissed his pants. Or shat himself. Just a little.  
  
“Uh, hi, Steve,” Sam said. And maybe squeaked. Just a little. Barnes made that mewing sound again, and oooh, shit, Sam did NOT want to be present for what happened next—  
  
But what happened next was surprisingly not the Alpha/Omega internet porn he’d expected. Steve swooped over, scooped his mate up bridal-style, brought Barnes’ tearing face to his neck to Scent, squeezed the glands dripping down the back of both their necks, and Barnes went from anxious, helpless squirming and mewling to spastic with bliss, then relaxed boneless in Steve’s arms.  
  
“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. Put his mate down on the erstwhile blanketfort/den/thing. Stripped his own scent-stained shirt over his head and tented it gently over his mate’s sleeping face.  
  
“Sorry,” Steve said, abashed. “Wish you didn’t have to see that. I, uh—“  
  
“Wait—“ Sam said. “That’s…it—?!”  
  
Steve stared at the floor. “It’s uh, I um, yeah—?“  
  
“No, I mean, dude is in full-blown, serious heat and you just, what—?” Sam gaped.  
  
“It’s the smell,” Steve tried to explain, flushing furiously. “The um, hormones? Obviously. I mean, uh, that’s why we Scent? I guess sex would work, too. If—if you wanted.”  
  
“So what, that’s like, a mated-pair thing?” Sam asked, grossed out but also legit curious. Just how much of his state mandated sex ed was a complete and utter fucking lie—?  
  
“No—?” Steve asked/said. Sam wasn’t really sure.  
  
“But—“ Sam protested. But, Sam’s brain protested. “But—“ Sam’s brain and mouth were stuck on a permanent loop of does not fucking compute, apparently. “But—“  
  
“No, that’s just a bunch of Alpha-centric sexist nonsense, isn’t it?” Steve said, leaning forward to caress his mate’s hair fondly. “When the laws are written and enforced by alphas, when science is discovered by alphas, reported by alphas…well, it just benefits…alphas. It’s not that heats and ruts and hormones aren’t a thing, Sam. It’s just…it’s just never as out of control as people like to claim it to be, is all.”  
  
“No, no wait. Back up a second. Are you telling me, Captain America, Mr. I got frozen in the mid-forties before the invention of hormonal heat suppressants that my enlightened,  scientific, civil rights-era earned public school sexual education is still all a lie—?”  
  
Steve blushed. “Uh…not all of it? I mean, oxytocin had been discovered and stuff when I was a kid but no one had ever, um, tied it to um, scent-receptors and touching and orgasm and stuff before. It was just…babies.”  
  
Sam was talking Rape Culture. Steve Rogers was talking fucking biochemistry.  
…literally.  
  
Sam sat down on the blanket fort next to a peacefully slumbering Barnes and laughed his damn black ass off.  
  
“Uh, I guess people still aren’t used to Captain America talking so candidly about sex—?” Steve wondered, pulling on a clean shirt, folding hims arms around himself and flopping into the leather lazy boy across from the them. Dude was jacked as hell, dripping in scent and sweat, and what,  embarrassed about it?  Sam was no small specimen himself, but damn, did Steve Rogers bring a whole new meaning to the term body-shaming. Not to mention self-doubt.  
  
“I mean, it’s one of the first questions I had. As a kid, When I first presented,” Steve shrugged. “Why is it that forcible knotting and unwanted pregnancies can occur, but a bonding bite can’t be forced? That you can rape someone—forcibly have sex with them—but never actually Mate?”  
  
And that shut Sam right the hell up. “I, um. I guess I’d never really thought about it like that before. It’s more, just…we’ll it’s always blame the Omega, isn’t it? They were asking for it, they must’ve wanted the pregnancy, they should’ve known better to go off suppressants or come out in heat—“  
  
“People’ll known that for centuries. Millenia, really. I just wanted to know if people actually, well. If they’d thought about it.”  
  
“So wait,” Sam said. “So you’re telling me—Mr. My Ma Fought for Omega RIghts and Equality—you’re telling me all our attitudes about sex are wrong—?”  
  
“Well, yeah. I mean, that’s the real shame about hormonal heat supplies and suppressants, isn’t it?” Steve sighed. “The science was discovered and advanced before heats and ruts were ever really understood. Kinsey didn’t begin to publish until the late 1940’s, and society really didn’t accept that science until the 1960’s—“  
  
“Did…did you just quote the fucking Kinsey Report at me?” Sam asked, in a bit of a daze. Sexual Behavior in the Human Alpha. Followed up five years later with Sexual Behavior of the Human Omega. And, like usual, your standard Beta-erasure. Kinsey scale 3, Sam’s fine black ass.  
  
Steve shrugged. “It is one of the defining works of the twentieth century. One of the first things I read out of the ice. Ma would’ve loved it.”  
  
“Wait wait wait. Slow down a second. SHIELD gave you the fucking Kinsey Reports in their little ‘Welcome to the Twenty-first Century Sorry You Froze Everyone and Everything You Know is Dead” Packet—?” Sam was as liberal as it got without the societal norms of living in, say, Finland for example, but what the actual hell—?  
  
Steve sunk deeper into the Lazy Boy, maybe hoping the upholstery would take mercy and swallow him whole. “Uh, no. I um, I actually googled that.”  
  
Sam was pretty sure he’d have to call a winch to get his jaw up off the floor ever again. “Wha—ah-wha—?” He managed to garble.  
  
“Well, for one, my mate was dead, and Peggy was old—“ Steve flushed. “I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to bond again—“  
  
“You read the Kinsey Reports because you wanted to bond again—?” Sam sniggered. “That’s not exactly why they were written.”  
  
Steve frowned. “I just—needed to know.”  
  
And that thought sobered him. “Oh, Steve, you’re not still—Catholic—are you?”  
  
“Of course I’m Catholic!”  
  
“No, I mean, like, you do know casual sex—just sex, you know, not Mating, not Bonding—you know that’s a thing, right?”  
  
All that righteous anger drained and Steve looked just so. Damn. Tired. “Sam…ever since I got this body I’ve known that was a thing,” Steve sighed. “When I was just me, no Omega ever had the time for me. Wouldn’t even Scent in my direction. After Erskine, and the serum? All they smelt were chemicals. It wasn’t me.”  
  
“So that really was your first kiss, huh?” Sam tried to inject in some much-needed humor from what Romanov had told him. “Since 1945, I mean.”  
  
Steve rolled his eyes. “I was ninety-five, and my mate was dead, and the only other person I’d ever wanted to bond with was in a geriatric nursing facility, so—“  
  
“Ha!” Sam said. “Peggy fuckin’ Carter—no offense, Steve. It’s just…man. Growing up. You were such an icon. I knew you were bisexual. I just KNEW it.”  
  
“Oh, please, Sam,” Steve rolled those baby blues, more comfortable in this skin, this century, even, than Sam had ever seen him. “I’m tri-sexual.”  
  
“Uh, tri—?” Sam asked. Because Barnes was Omega as hell, and Peggy Can’t Touch This Carter was (still!) the living definition of an Alpha Female.  
  
…Steve sunk even lower into his chair in an act of defiance against the laws of physics and gravity. “On your left?” he asked sheepishly.  
  
“Oh. My. GOD CAP!” Sam guffawed, slapping his knee. “I KNEW you were hitting on me! Everyone I talked to said I was crazy—!”  
  
Steve went Red, White, and Blue like Old Glory. “Like I said, my mate was dead, well, I thought so at least—and Peggy—“  
  
But all their noise had disturbed Barnes’ post—er, not coital but Scenting?—bliss and began to stir. He flexed his fingers, fisted bare toes, made that pathetic mewing sound again, crying for his Alpha. Steve crouched over, tucked the Scent-stained shirt behind his mate’s head gently like a pillow. Not that the dude needed it, or anything, what with the massive fucking blanket fort. Kissed his sweaty forehead. “Hey, Buck.”  
  
“I’m fuckin’ furious with you, sweetheart,” Barnes slurred, blinking into awareness. “Where the hell are my goddamned heat supplies, huh?”  
  
America’s All-Alpha superhero let out a little laugh. “I, uh, I got you some new ones, Buck.”  
  
“What, tampons an’ shit changed since back in our day or somethin’? Barnes growled.  
  
“Just—“ Steve pulled out a suspiciously inconspicuous small black shopping bag. The kind of discrete, anonymous packaging with matching, patterned tissue paper that just screamed “SEX SHOP” from a mile away. Real subtle there, Rogers. Sam’d be willing to bet there were already pap pics up on TMZ.  
  
Aaand speaking of sex toys, cue Sam’s awkward exit out of here.  
  
“What’ssin the bag?” Barnes slurred, rolling to his stomach to inspect.  
  
“It’s for you,” Steve flushed, blue eyes adoring.  
  
…aw, shit. Exeunt: blocked by a blanket-fort. Thanks, Shakespeare. So it wasn’t going to be your run of the mill Alpha/Omega porno, but still. Private moment. First heat. Long-dead, long-lost-recently-reunited Mates and all that. It’s not that Sam Wilson wasn’t happy for them, it’s just he really, really didn’t need to be here.  
  
Barnes rolled his eyes. Stuck a hand in and—“Jesus H. Christ, Rogers!”  
  
“You don’t like it,” Steve sat back on his heels, crestfallen.  
  
“If I wanted heat toys I’da gone to a blue shop,” Barnes sat and frowned at the enormous dildo.  
  
“They have this thing called internet, now,” Sam offered. Loudly. Just to remind everyone he was still here. Besides, if Steven Grant Actual Catholic Saint Rogers could google the Kinsey Report, surely, surely Barnes had discovered internet porn by now.  
  
…yeah, Sam. And with a Mate like that, who needs it?  
  
“You kids and your new-fangled gadgets take the fun outta everything,” Barnes sighed, flailing the head of that silicone cock in Sam’s general direction. “Sure I could look at dirty pictures here but seein’ it in person is just so much more exciting. An’ you know me, Stevie. I ever used toys before? Why’d I want some shit like this when I could just be with you?”  
  
“I dunno, Buck,” Steve flushed and oookay Sam really, really did not need to be here for this. “You’ve been pretty fond of ‘em before.” He’d learned military signals in the Army, was even getting some basic lessons from Barton “are you deaf, I am hearing, I speak sign language, please, thank you, fingerspell his own name, etc.” but Clint had said he was an adult learner so those simple phrases and stuff would do unless he really wanted to get more serious and goddamnit, Sam. You had to be lazy and go with your first name only, didn’t you? ‘Cause TMI would’ve come in pretty damn handy (ha. Um, ASL joke. Ableist. Not cool, man.) right now.  
  
Barnes rolled his eyes. “I was pretty fond of that dumb guy stickin’ ‘em in me, you mean.”  
  
Alright, new plan then: osmosis into the carpet. Or wall. Or ceiling. Samuel Thomas Wilson wasn’t picky.  
  
Steve sighed. Cupped a hand under his mate’s cleft chin. “I ain’t gonna be here all the time, Buck.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Barnes sighed. “Aliens and shit. Ain’t the future just swell?”  
  
Steve frowned, rubbed his thumb into Barnes’ stubble. “Do I work too much?”  
  
“I’m sayin’ I’da read more Asimov if I’d known this was gonna happen,” Barnes shrugged, tucking that toy back into its bag. Thrust it back at Steve. “No, an’ that’s final. Never did use one without you, sweetheart. Just wouldn’t be right, sticking something in me that wasn’t you. Thinkin’ about anything or anyone that wasn’t you.”  
  
“Buck, it…” Steve broke off. “it ain’t exactly a heat toy.”  
  
“Oh, really? This big rubber knot?” Barnes reached a hand in that bag, snatched it again for emphasis. Thing was so thick it hardly bent, silicone or no. And the sight of Captain America looking completely downtrodden at the sight of a brandished dildo destroyed the man’s street cred. “Cause it sure as hell looks like a heat toy to me, Stevie. Big an’ veined and thick an’ look at the size of that knot,” Barnes whistled. “Now that’s a hole-killer for sure. Say, you sure that serum worked on your eye sight?” Then he licked it suggestively, gave a wink, the little shit.  
  
“It’s mine,” Steve flushed.  
  
Barnes rolled his eyes. Bopped his mate over the head with it. “Oh, so just ‘cause you bought the dick it’s okay.”  
  
“No, I mean, it’s mine,” Steve caught his wrist, stopped the assault but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at him “I made it—I uh, I had it made—I, um, if you don’t like we, uh, you don’t have to—“  
  
Wait. No. Wait.  
  
…seriously? And Sam’s brain went and sent him a post card from Tazmania, that’s how oh-hell-no far out of here it was.  
  
“You did what—?” Barnes gasped.  
  
“It’s mine. I had it cast,” Steve flushed, chin tucked and throat covered in anxiety. “It’s—it’s my knot.”  
  
“Oh, baby-boy, aleph, my gorgeous guy, c’mere. c’mon. It’s okay. Steve? Stevie? C’mon, doll face, look at me.”  
  
“I just, I thought, it’d be…it’d be nice for you,” Steve muttered to the floor. “You know, to, to actually have a real heat, to know what it felt like.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Sam threw caution and TMI and totally not here right now out the window with the baby. And the bathwater. And at this point probably the kitchen sink, who was honestly just feeling left out, okay?  “I mean, it’s not like he hasn’t felt it, I mean, he has felt it, right? Right? Guys?”  
  
Barnes gave him The Look™ again. The shut up you schmuck or I will shut you permanently up one.  
  
Sam should really just shut the hell up. But brain/mouth filter disconnect was at an all time high. “Really? Never? What? Why?” Then— “Oh, Steve…this isn’t…it isn’t one of your weird Catholic things, is it?” Sam wondered sadly. The whole “Tolerance” culture, that pernicious and still oh-so-harmful “my Sexual Identity and Orientation are how God made me but acting on those impulses is a Sin” thing going around the religious right.  
  
“Says the Beta Baptist,” Barnes shot back.  
  
“I’m fine being a Beta,” Sam defended. “Doesn’t mean I don’t have or can’t enjoy sex. It’s just, not, like, my biological imperative.”  
  
“Yeah, an’ how’d you know it ain’t a weird Jewish thing?” Barnes snapped, gathering Steve up onto that haphazard pile. “Could be me an’ my religious principles.”  
  
Steve snorted. “Buck, he’s known you long enough to know you ain’t got any.”  
  
“Shut your mouth, sweetheart, and give us a smile,” Barnes slapped him lightly, just the very pads of his finger tips, put a hand under his jaw, thumb in Steve’s lips. “Seen and not heard, remember? There you are. Look at you, my gorgeous guy,” he crooned as Steve sucked his fingers. “So damn pretty.”  
  
Sam opened his mouth to voice his objections.  
  
…his brain was still on vacation.  
  
“You got somethin’ you wanna say, slugger?” Barnes challenged.  
  
“Not particularly.” And Sam slammed his mouth shut.  
  
“Good. ‘Cause for a moment there it looked like you were gonna say somethin’ real dumb about gender roles and shit like that, and my baby don’t need that,” Barnes snarled. “Not in my house.”  
  
Apparently self-preservation instincts were feeling felt out, too. “You’ve…really…never? Not once? Really? Why—?” Sam sputtered.  
  
Barnes sighed. “You’ve seen him, scrawny an’ sick, everyone convinced he’s an omega, me an alpha, hell my first heat scared the shit outta me, didn’t know what was happening ’til this dumb fucker came chargin’ in to get me, took down a pack of the meanest, leanest dock workers in Red Hook, had himself his first rut and nearly died of an asthma attack on the spot—or was that your arrhythmia? or anemia? Point bein’, couldn’t really sustain a knot, let alone an erection back in those days, and hell, just gettin’ a blow job damn near killed him. So we made do with fingers an’ hands and heat suppressants, such as they were. Then the war, and the serum.”  
  
“And what? You didn’t get the chance to ride that dick off into the sunset?”  
  
“I fell from a train, fuckwit.”  
  
“Yeah, but, but _before_ …” Sam pressed.  
  
Barnes rolled his eyes in turn. “We messed around some, sure. But his ma was a nurse. We ain’t stupid. Ain’t takin’ any chances.   Super-soldier serum, remember? There was a war on. You really think we were gonna trust somethin’ like fuckin’ condoms? Yeah. Not a chance.”  
  
“But, but—“ Sam objected. “But they’ve got _hormonal suppressants,_ and, and—“  
  
“Yeah, and I happen to like us both just how God—and Erskine—made us, thanks. Don’t see how it’s any of your business how we fuck no how, Wilson,” Barnes sniffed. Make that Scented. “Now get out unless you wanna see and smell a helluva lot of hot, dirty, sweaty sex.”  
  
And Samuel Thomas “Oh Hell No” Wilson did NOT need to be told twice.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Wanda Maximoff is a conniving little shit. 
> 
> ...seriously, Sam's having breakfast with Jewish Slytherin McGonagall, here.

  
_kitchen_  
_emergency_  
_come now_  
_also tea_

...at least it wasn't coffee. Wanda Maximoff brewed Turkish coffee strong enough to kill a horse. And even at 5 am, Sam wasn't brave enough to try it twice.

As weird (and unsolicited) texts went, this was certainly at the top of the list. But Wanda Maximoff was the youngest Avenger, still just a kid in many ways, so if Samuel “It’s Too Early For This Shit” Thomas Wilson could put on his running shoes and shorts and haul is his lazy ass around the DC Memorial Circle just to catch a coupla fit guys in skin-tight muscle shirts every morning, then he could drag his damn ass out of bed to deal with a literal teenage mutant (ninja?) crisis happening down the hall, way too early in the morning or not.  
  
Sam stretched. Yawned. Stumbled towards the communal kitchen, blinking blearily. He was then assaulted by Serbian? Russian? Sokovian? shit he didn't even know anymore and music sure as hell wasn't even _an approximation_ at about 100,000 dB. At this point Sam was pretty sure it registered on the Richter Scale.  “What. The Fuck.” Sam said as figurative fucking ice pick lodged itself behind his left eye.  
  
“It’s несрећom невеста,” Wanda shrugged from her seat at the table, absently stirring tea-tar from those jars with a spoon into mugs while halfway across the fucking room, reading a Cryllic gossip magazine on her Stark tablet. Sam had been wrong. It was Way, _Way_ Too Early For This Shit in the morning to deal with this.  
  
“What, like I’m supposed to know?”  
  
Wanda looked up from her tablet and grinned. “Here I thought you appreciate good music.”  
  
“What,” Sam deadpanned, “and this is good music?”  
  
“I believe Wanda was referencing the unparalleled influence of black musicians and black culture on the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries,” Vision appeared/explained out of nowhere, interrupting somewhat (un)helpfully(?)/terrifyingly/pantshittingly and fuck Sam was having a goddamn heart attack and yeah, he’d definitely jumped out of his own damn slippers. “And I have been informed you are black, Sam Wilson,” Vision continued, as though instantaneous physical manifestation at Ass O’Clock in the morning were the norm in any civilized society. “My experience with human vernacular and cultural studies would suggest this was an attempt at American racial humor.”  
  
Wanda smiled, a forced, murderous smile, but a smile all the same. “Yes, thanks, Viz.”  
  
“Oh, you’re quite welcome. Are we drinking tea?” ‘Viz’ asked. “Exclusive we,” he clarified. “That is to say non-inclusive we, of course. Semantically speaking. I do not physically...consume...beverages…” he trailed off helplessly.  
  
“Sam and I are having tea,” Wanda emphasized, giving the center of his chest a tap with one matte black finger tip. “You are not. And also not invited, I think.”  
  
“Oh. Yes. I will—simply leave then. Enjoy your tea,” dude nodded politely, then _stepped through a goddamn wall_ like, 'no big deal, I'll just, you know, vary my atomic density because it's less effort than using a door like a normal fucking person'.

Sam felt a bit dizzy. Sam sat down. “Is he—“  
  
“Always like this?” Wanda sighed. “Yes. We are taking ESL class online together. Introduction to American Humor. He is terrible. He does not understand sarcasm. Or nuance. Or racism,” she wrinkled her nose. “Did you know. He sees. More than we do. His vision—“ she chuckled at her own pun. “Is more of the spectrum? He sees us from emitted infrared heat signatures, not reflected visual light. He can see fever, hypothermia, skeletal damage—“  
  
_Oh, geez,_ Sam's brain as his skin began to crawl. _Right through our—_  
  
“X-rays let him see right through our clothes, you are right,” Wanda said, swiping through images of Eastern European-looking girls in cute long-sleeve t-shirt dresses on her Stark tablet, all casual like discussing the weather. Then— “Jam?” she asked, then nodded at his unconscious response as three teaspoons of the stuff just fucking poured itself into her mug. It was like breakfast with Professor McGonagall. Or Mary Poppins. Or Sam’s brain was still tripping off those mushrooms he and Riley had done together in college. _Sure, suuure Sammy-boy you grow up to be a flying pararescueman called the Falcon and Cap’s best friend. Sure you’re an Avenger. And, oh you’re a fucking wizard, Sammy. Here, have a pony,_ Sam sighed. Some days it sure made a helluva lot more sense than any of this shit being real.  
  
“He does not understand those, either. But is nice. He is naive, maybe sometimes seems stupid, to us. But when it comes to our skin, our race, he is actually color blind.”  
  
“That’s—“  
  
“Refreshing,” Wanda finished for him, as two teacups floated themselves over. “I am Jewish Romani Omega Mutant. From Sokovia. Believe me, I know.” Wanda Maximoff: +10 diversity, everyone! (Also she could move the dice with her telekinesis powers so she rolled a perfect fucking 20 every damn time. Seriously. Home girl destroyed at D &D.)  
  
“Yeah," Sam offered. "I’ll bet.”  
  
“And yes. He is weird," she sighed, grasped the handle of her floating tea cup and took a sip. "But I love him. What should I do.”  
  
“Haha,” Sam said, rolling with her broken English and putting his cup on the _goddamned table where it belonged_. It was kinder, he’d learned, than trying to be helpful. Girl could read minds. Knew from the moment Sam heard it she’d meant ‘what can you do’, and she'd remember it for next time. “Yeah, we’re all pretty fond of his weird red ass. Actually—I don’t really know if his ass is red and damnit, I don’t want to,” Sam stopped in sudden horror. “Does he—“  
  
“Know that he is red?” Wanda grinned, letting go of her cup and it just...hung there... _and shit,_ Sam thought, the girl had an idea, a _horrible, awful, evil_ idea. “That this is not normal color?”  
  
Her nose wrinkled up even more as she she laughed. “He sees so much, from infrared to gamma radiation, not just visual light. He tried to make it the visual spectrum for us, so he looks how we look. To him. He thinks,” she smiled fondly. “So no. I do not think so.”  
  
“Should we—“  
  
“Tell him?” Wanda finished for him as that girly smile disappeared and the grin grew—if possible—even wider and more wicked. “What, and spoil the fun?”  
  
“You are terrible,” Sam groaned. Hit his head against the counter top. Because, yeah. No. Sam Wilson was NOT spoiling this for himself, or for the human race. Alien robot wants to blend in, do the whole Old Testament angel “Be Not Afraid” thing so he goes and makes his skin fucking _red_ in order to humanize himself and offer comfort. It was—adorably thoughtful, really. And hilarious. He’d go with both.  
  
“So what did you call me down here for, anyways?” Sam finally sighed, attacking his tea. It was either him or it, as far as Sam was concerned. Barnes, Natasha, and Wanda were all fucking weird when it came to hot beverages (their cold beverages, on the other hand, Sam could appreciate. There was a store of very, _very_ fiiine vodka kept in stock in every Avengers freezer.). Something about those Eastern European winters, man.  “You didn’t haul my ass outta bed just to talk about Vision’s weird red one.”  
  
“No,” Wanda snickered. “Well, yes, actually. I mean, I love him,” she emphasized, returning to Sam’s earlier, unvoiced critique. “What should I do.”  
  
…Oh, hell. Samuel Thomas "Falcon" Wilson was an ex-Airforce LCSW specializing in military trauma and veteran reintegration. He was NOT qualified for this shit.  
  
“Don’t you have, uh, Barton? For this sort of thing?” Sam asked weakly. Dude was her adopted dad—or odd uncle?—or maybe even older step-brother who was kind of weird? Definitely weird. Then he remembered her dead kid brother and oh god oh shit she's telepathic _don't think about what'shisface don't thinkaboutwhat'shisface..._  
  
“Clint,” Wanda snorted. “Is walking disaster. There is hole in his floor and his dog has fleas and eats _pizza._ Besides, he is divorced three times.”  
  
“He’s been making it work with, uh—“  
  
“Laura?” she rolled her hazel eyes. “She is sister.”  
  
Brain fart. Sam poured scalding Sokovia-style tea all down his lucky Captain America PJs and didn’t even notice. “What?”  
  
“Laura Barton is his sister. Her husband is dead. He helps support them,” she shrugged, then frowned at her tea. "Needs more jam."

 _Accio jam_ , Sam's broken brain supplied as the jar floated over and emptied itself of its own accord. Then Sam's brain went on permanent vacation. “But, what, wait, why—“  
  
“Is simpler this way,” Wanda explains. Because, and Sam still got the creeps over this, bitch could READ MINDS. “He does not tell anyone because it is simpler. To assume. So no one asks her questions.”  
  
…questions like “if her husband’s dead how come she’s pregnant” and "that is some weird Lannister-level shit going on" and “were they adopted” and “what business does a single, widowed woman have having kids anyways”. _Yeah, Sam_ , he cringed. _Way to be supportive._  
  
“They are her husband’s,” Wanda explained, sipping her tea. “He died. Iraq, I think. But they wanted children. So they did that thing. Before. With sperm. And freezing. So now they have them.”  
  
“But he’s—“  
  
“Dead,” Wanda said, eyes hollow. “Should she love him any less.”  
  
“But that’s—“ _just weird,_ Sam’s brain insisted. _Also none of your business, Samuel Thomas Wilson. So shut up._ And his brain did.  
  
“Vision is sentient Android powered by alien technology. I can move things with my mind. My best friend literally ran away and joined the circus as child and now is special ops sniper who fights robots with _bow and arrow._ Steve is on hiatus from the Avengers again because Yasha went into heat and does not like suppressants,” Wanda said. “You are man who _flies_. We are all weird.”  
  
_But—_ Sam’s brain supplied.  
  
“But we make it work because we love each other. Now come on, you are counselor. I am in love with agender, asexual, artificially created sentient android from outer space. What do I do?”  
  
“Uh…” Sam began.  
  
“I can not just tell him,” Wanda slumped back on the kitchenette bar stool with a sigh. “Is more complicated than that.”  
  
“Why, ‘cause he’s not—uh, human?”  
  
“He is human as you or I am,” she frowned. "Just because he is artificial does not make him any less."  
  
“I mean—the whole—“ SEX THING, Sam didn’t—refused to—say aloud (Did dude even have a dick? Would Ultron/Helen Cho have even considered that—?). Christ, Wanda was a teenager, but Samuel Thomas “Good Ally and Women’s Lib Advocate” Wilson was not about to slut shame some kid for wanting a piece of that android ass, even if it did make him hella uncomfortable. It was the last thing home girl here needed.  
  
“Please, Sam. I am Omega. I have _heat supplies,_ ” she rolled her eyes, took another sip of tea as if discussing sex toys with a stranger over breakfast was a normal occurrence where she was from. “And suppressants. I am young, but I am responsible for my own orgasm for many years.”  
  
“Oh, okay, then,” and Sam was blushing like a damn fool. “If it’s not the sex, is it—“  
  
“I am _Jewish_ ,” Wanda groaned, hiding her face in her hands, well manicured, matte black nails clashing with the sudden mop of her sleek brown hair. “How do I tell him this—?”  
  
“Wait, your wanna-be-boyfriend’s an agender, asexual android from outer space and you’re worried he won’t, what, keep _kosher_ —?”  
  
“Sam, _I_ am not kosher. Have you seen the way me and Yasha eat? I love sea food. Also cheeseburgers. With bacon. Lots of bacon,” she iterated. “Bacon is delicious.”  
  
“So you’re non-observant—“  
  
“Not orthodox,” Wanda corrected. “Not same thing.”  
  
“Right. Right. You’re a Sokovian, Jewish Romani Mutant Avenger who’s worried about broaching the subject of romance because your guy’s not, what—“ Baptized? Sam thought unhelpfully.  
  
“Baptized is the word,” Wanda cut across his thoughts, lifting her brows. “We invented it, you know. You get that from us.”  
  
“Huh,” Sam said. “Didn’t know that.”  
  
“What, you think John Baptist just decides this? Please, Birdman,” she grinned and leaned forward, mischief in her eyes. “We are doing it for century before.”  
  
Sam shook his head. Ran a tired hand through his hair. “Lemme guess. You’re about to go all ‘Jesus was Jewish’ on my dumb black ass.”  
  
“Wow. You are telepathic,” Wanda said in mock surprise, two fingers to her face. “What is with these Catholics, anyways?”  
  
“I know, right?” Sam lets out a weak laugh. “Sprinkling, Popes…hell, they’re even the ones who put the Bible in fucking _Latin_ for sixteen centuries. Like the Romans. You know, the guys who killed Jesus?”  
  
“Wait, I thought Jews do this,” Wanda said, mouth agape in mock surprise. And oh, girl got sarcasm, all right. “That is why you Christians kill us, no?”  
  
Sam threw up his hands. Threw in the towel. “Hey, man. I’m just saying.”  
  
“Well. You say things are ghetto? You get that from us, too,” she winked, and shit, this kid was _trouble_. Would give Sarah “Gonna Laugh At Your Dumb Black Ass All Day” Wilson-Carson  a run for her money. He kept forgetting she was raised in a HYDRA cell orphanage. For mutant child warriors. By a brain-washed Barnes. And yeah, judging by that, he’d say Yasha’s sense of humor was actually _worse_. “You are welcome.”  
  
And Sam didn’t know whether to laugh or run the hell away. If Sam’s brain had any say in it, he was voting buy at one-way ticket to Tasmania and get the fuck outta here.  
  
“No, stay,” Wanda groaned, Sam's chair scraping back into position. “Drink tea. Pretend I am normal teenager. Now help me with boy problems.”  
  
And that, boys and girls, is the story how Samuel Thomas “Oh Hell No” Wilson, Beta son of a Baptist minister, found himself drawing the short straw and nominated to explain the concept of tevilah to an agender, asexual, artificially created sentient atheist android from outer fucking space. Because, as Wanda explained, "He will not understand and he will think is stupid and he will say is illogical and I will get angry and we will argue and it will be like talking with this Mr. Spock and I will hate it and I will hate him and we will both be angry at each other and I can't ask Yasha because Yasha would laugh and then lecture me and then kill him I know he is Vision but Yasha is _Yasha_ ,” she said all in one breath. “He would find way.”  
  
...Oh, Great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Laura Barton, but I like comics Clint, who's kind of a mess. I didn't want to ignore (thanks, Marvel!) a female character or fridge (thanks afuckingain, Marvel!) a female character for no reason or start a needless love triangle (actually, DC, this time I'm looking at you!), so Laura and Clint Barton love each other very much as family and siblings, and Clint would murder anyone for his big sis and her kids...but he's also got his bachelor pad in BedStuy with pizza dog, because just 'cause a man CAN be a responsible adult dude with his shit together doesn't mean he hast to be all the time. 
> 
> (Or, Clint is a mess because he prefers it that way.)
> 
> несрећom невеста/nesrećom nevesta (Serbian): Plague Bride (aka Sokovia's fourth most popular Serbian language folk funk death metal band, beloved of Bucky and Wanda, and scourge of the Avengers Compound. If you play Plague Bride anywhere in the Avengers Compound, you play Plague Bride in the ENTIRE Avengers Compound.)


End file.
